Grain growth in nanocrystalline materials

Microstructure of nanomaterials strongly changes owing to normal and abnormal grain growth. In the paper, we use the available experimental data to perform a computer model investigation of grain growth in nanomaterials and to investigate the influence of such key parameters as grain size, energy and mobility of grain boundaries and their triple junctions as well as the drag force exerted by second-phase particles. The obtained results agree well with the experimental data and allow formulating some general rules that can be used for governing the evolution of grain structure in nanomaterials. •Grain growth in nanomaterials is numerically simulated.•At the initial stages, grain growth develops very rapidly.•The growth kinetics markedly deviates from the parabolic at D0